Shocker 240 kit on 1999 Honda Civic

Main Your Horns & Installs
21

@n2ocharged, yes I would like to have my compressor last a long time and plan on putting in active cooling for it for the summer at least.

The power cable for the compressor is the supplied wire from hornblasters, with 40A fuse I believe. Also ran a small fuse for the air valve. The wire thickness is fine. The fuses are close to the power source.

I haven’t shown you the fuse for my 4-gauge wire yet but it is normally before the firewall in the engine compartment.

The air tank is not tight in that space; lots of room for motor movement. The tank is sitting on the car body, it’s not dangling between the car body and the motor.
The exhaust pipe isn’t directly below the tank, and in that area the pipe has heat shields on it.
The compressor is in the corner, as far away from heat sources as possible.

The ATX power supply is just plugged into the inverter, same place as the AirCond. The trunk gets air for the exhaust fan partially from the cabin, I leave a small gap in my insulation.

Electrical fire? Fuses would have blown under the hood or I would shut off the inverter/yanked out fuses myself before pouring water on electrical equipment if I needed to.

Water is fine on (a lot of) electrical equipment as long as they are de-energized (all capacitors are dead). I’d let it thoroughly dry out and inspect before plugging back in (and figuring out how the fire was caused)

Water in the trunk? I (usually) don’t have the fan in the hole when there is a chance of rain, I cover the hole with a airplane maintenance hatch cover thing. Nifty little gadget.

Pictured in this vid from 3:29 to 3:31 or so. It is the circular object that has the air conditioner screws on it. Primed it good with white primer, almost matches my paint job. Primed the heck out of the metal inside the trunk lid to prevent any rusting.
No meaningful amount of water gets in.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZftgDp15meE&feature=channel_video_title

Yea i know it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get a small A,B,C extinguisher. The horn system is solid imo. The AC system is not. I just need to add cooling to the air compressor.

I don’t have my AC system installed right now, it’s only useful at cruising speeds or when parked, and that is only if I fix the fan versus air-going-over-car battle. I can’t use it in stop-go traffic because the RPMs are too low on the alternator to keep it cool.
It’s fine though, the AC was just a fun little project.

22

Like I said man… I’m not bashing your system… it is 100% your choice. I’m simply saying I would have done it differently. I know you said you are going to get a cooling system for the compressor, but how are you going to cool hot air? There is no way to cool the engine bay of a car unless you take the hood off… or get a hood with a scoop… and that would be pushing it.

I was just asking about the fuses because I didn’t see any on the cable while you were shooting the video. NBD. and if you watch the same video you posted, at minute 10:12 you will see the cable run all the way across the engine bay with no fuse. I would not have more than 4" - 6" before putting a fuse on a 4ga wire that is handling that kind of power. if anything were to happen to that wire and it grounded before the fuse, your car is gone… it WILL catch fire.

On my compressors alone, I have an 80A circuit breaker and then two 40A fuses before power hits my compressors. Call me overkill… but I would rather have something like that break before I toast my truck.

23

I thought it was pretty crazy that i saw the ac setup on youtube… (not even sure how i came across it…)

And then his car showed up on here with a train horn :smiley:

Side note about you saying the towel isnt scorched yet.…

That scares me just to think you would put your car , with your new horns, and whatever else thats valuable in there at risk with something as crazy as a towel next to something hot…

I guess it is really hitting home for me because on my first truck i owned, a 94 s10 , I got the oil changed and the mechanic left a rag next to the engine . Well the whole drive home home which was only 7-8 min. away, I smelled something burning. At first i thought just oil dripped on manifold. Nope. By time i backed in my driveway i saw smoke coming from under hood, I quickly threw the hood open and there was a rag on fire next to engine. :eek: near gas lines. :eek:

I thought fast grabbed one of those long reach tools that get into tight spots, grabbed flaming rag and threw it across driveway.

To this day i check the engine bay for rags after i get work done! :wink:

Sorry to go on about a rant but just looking out for you.

24

This Thread is interesting to say the least.

I’m a little amused, Horn kit under bonnet to save space in the boot, open boot and theres a great big aircon unit in it.

A 240v power supply powering a 12v fan?

Toilet roll for insulation and air con stabilisation purposes.

I have to ask this, but tell us this aint a wind up? lol

If its not, I’m gonna subcribe to your You Tube account, I cant wait to see more of your hard researched creations.

And then I find myself asking the question… Has anyone else done anything similar??? …It would appear so:D

Or why not try just getting the components from a scrap yard?

Or fitting a unit off a fridge van?

OR …do wot this guy does… (only in america)

And finally… nothing really to do with anything other than it made me chuckle as has this entire thread… I thank you:D

25

Sinky brotha… that was not on a 240v system… that is a 110v system :stuck_out_tongue:

26

and paper towels not toilet rolls! The AC project was just fun for me. Elegancy wasn’t a priority and I didn’t want to spend money for a proper AC system for the car because a side effect of this AC project is that I can use my car as a portable power source if I need to… Just need to find a small brick or something to put on the gas pedal to keep RPMs around 2,000 if the load is very high (to keep alternator from heating up).

Mounting something on the roof would dramatically increase wind drag…

27

I like that pic with the red van with AC … ductless AC system…inverter compressor (variable speed)…

28

ohhhh yeahhh you guys use the weak stuff lol lol :stuck_out_tongue:

29

[QUOTE=n2ocharged;56180]r, but how are you going to cool hot air? There is no way to cool the engine bay of a car unless you take the hood off… or get a hood with a scoop… and that would be pushing it.

The radiator fan is on the passenger side of the bay, same side as compressor. It’ll bring in fresh air if the car is at low speeds or whatever and air will blow in naturally if I’m cruising. I’m thinking of use my Delta fan, somehow attach it to the compressor and wire it to get power whenever the compressor switches on. I should take a trip to Good Will to see about getting a digital indoor/outdoor thermometer thing to stick to the compressor.

30

How the hell can you tell??? lol

lol, dude you are… a comedy genius:D

31

LOL! I know a ductless system when I see one! Those are freon lines coming from the unit to the window. They kick butt for homes…no thermal loss from ductwork but then you have a condenser/evaporator thing on the wall in the house.

Some shuttle buses use this technique and the condenser/evaporator thing is in the back of the bus on the ceiling, the compressor is out of the living space. Usually down below somewhere. http://www.eshuttle.net/Mini%20Bus%20Interior.JPG

I know I know I’m a smart a$(

32

The radiator fan is pulling air from the radiator… IE: HOT AIR from the radiator. to cool the engine. You are not pusing cold air to the air compressor.

33

Ok after seeing the window unit and how you are trying to get the hot air from the condeser out of your trunk i cant help bt laugh because you are not getting near enough of the hot air out with that little fan. You should just open the trunk lid cause you are going to fry the compressor on that unit by recirculating hot air. Might i know from working in the HVAC field. Also that window unit is so oversized for your car that you are better off driving with the windows down and letting the unit run to keep from cycling off to quickly. Just a lil advice from somebody that works on heating and air conditioning units daily

34

Might i also say removing the thermal overloads from your compressor is a bad idea. Only time you should jump them out is when troubleshooting a unit. Your compressor will burn up soon and i doubt ur car has the proper protection for when it burns up and shorts out. Just trying to help you out.

35

Dude, he’s got no fuses on that 4ga wire what so ever… I’ve mentioned all of this before… but he’s got excuses why he does things… so let him burn his car. NBD

36

Right. Technically speaking, the exhaust fan to the trunk should be the same size as the one on the a/c unit -AND- there should be an inlet hole to the trunk of similar size…preferably in the opposite corner of the trunk to promote cross flow.

37

Yea we have all obviously tried to help this poor guy and he still refuses our advice so oh well his problem not ours. We come across people that do stupid things like this everyday in this field. And what people dont realize is how much danger they can cause to themselves or others. By pulling out the thermal overloads on that compressor and recirculating hot air he is lookin at a possible fire from the heat in his trunk, an electrical short, and not to mention the head pressure is going to be around 400psi on that unit, that is if its an r-22 unit and if its a 410 unit hes lookin at 600psi. Those compressors are simply not designed for that.

38

Adding to topic but changing it a bit… I couldnt believe my eyes what i saw the other day while driving… I’m glad i had my phone handy!

39

Sure it does. My 12VDC to 120AC inverter should cut out if the compressor seizes, and if doesn’t then I can just flip the switch easily while I’m driving.

Fire after power is cut? Water and fast agility. Removing the thermal+current protection was necessary so the unit would function. Yep I’m sure it was running way out of spec.

Danger of fire because of no fuse on 4ga wire in the scenario when compressor seizes/shorts, nope, that wire won’t heat up very fast. 4ga is thick! I have felt the wire (insulation around it) after an AC session and it isn’t more than luke warm.

However I do see the safety in adding a fuse to the system is case the 4ga wire insulation ever gets punctured or a short occurs for whatever reason between the battery and the inverter. I have a 250A ANL fuse and holder on the way. Will try to find a 160A fuse because 250A might not trip very easily. My redneck solution would be “bolt cutters”.

When I first started this setup last summer (2010), I had a fuse that I got from an car audio place. It was actually a circuit breaker deal, but it sucked because it would trip when the AC started to be stressed so I took it out, and connected the two wire ends on the positive line with an aluminum splicer/reducer and sealed that junction up with cloth-like tape that sticks to itself, followed by electrical tape over that, from a few inches before to a few inches after the junction. That’s what you saw behind my air box.

The new fuse holder will go there.

I will say this one more time, the AC project was just for fun and I don’t expect any AC unit to last very long. It was just an idea and it turns out to not work so well because even a 6KBTU AC unit can’t cool a car because of all the green-house. But one can stay cool if the air blows directly against them, can’t do that from behind the seats without ductwork.

I will still have my inverter and my voltage booster so I can power 120v devices when I want to.

That 120mm fan moves 240CFM of air, do you know how much that is? It is the fastest fan you can buy for that size. The temperature in the trunk does equalize to a pretty high temperature but the heat in the trunk by no means would cause the car to “burst into flames”.

Thanks for getting me to push the fuse project up higher on my to-do list.

40

Yeah 150amp is about the biggest fuse recommended for 4ga - so a 160 is reasonably close. This is assuming the 4ga isn’t longer than about 10’.

A 250amp would be just like no fuse at all. In other words, you could melt the wire before the fuse popped. There are charts online for wire size -vs- length -vs- load rating.